‘Healing the Land’ An interview with Chief Calvin Craigan of the Shishalh First Nation, British Columbia

Meeting Chief Calvin

After some introductions over Starbucks coffees with two forest conservation activists who have kindly set up the meeting for us, we scamper across the busy highway to Chief Calvin’s house, one of a cluster of bungalows and cabins set among dark conifers on a bluff overlooking the sea. We are ushered into a long room at the back with a large window which lets in the light from the west. The high table around which we perch is scattered with papers. A massive Shishalh Dictionary thicker than a bible stands among pamphlets, a brochure on the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and a fan of eagle feathers.

Chief Calvin graciously allows us to settle in and exchange pleasantries. He is older than I expected. In his 70s, he says, and he radiates a charismatic self-effacing charm with an underlying determination. His serious, lined, handsome, long face has a sad but inspiring tale to share but he salts his story with jokes and ironic asides and his face then breaks into an open smile matched by glinting humour in his eyes.    

He starts by telling us about the damage caused to the forests by the logging companies. What used to be old growth forests all along the coast has now been logged over at least three times by five large timber corporations. There is not much old growth forest left except along some of the ridges and less accessible inland valleys. After years they have now persuaded the BC Government that further forestry operations must be done with their agreement. The few remaining large and valuable timbers - Red Cedar, Yellow Cedar, Douglas Fir and Hemlock – are now being extracted through negotiated sales agreements and sold as labelled specialist timbers to manufacturers and furniture makers in Japan, China and USA. Clear-cutting has been ended and operations now include rehabilitation of creeks and rivers. Gradually, they are trying to restore their territory to its original health. The state of the forests is vital to the restoration of their fisheries, Chief Calvin explains, on which they traditionally relied. The streams and rivers harbour numerous salmon species, which he counts off on his fingers – chum, pink, coho and sockeye. The problem for their management does not just come from the logging and settlement but from sports fishermen who can get licences to fish from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans without any reference to the Shishalh. ‘The government must step aside to let the community do the management’ says Chief Calvin. ‘We want our own right to hand out licenses so we can control what is going on’. With the help of independent fish biologists, the people are now exploring new aquaculture options, salmon in the interior lakes and clam gardens in the coastal waters.

The Shishalh land claim

The Shishalh filed a land claim with the government which had advanced to Stage 5 of the process but Chief Calvin says that although the government is willing to negotiate an agreement, including compensation, the process is now in abeyance. ‘We are not making a land claim through that process as they only pay peanuts. Instead, we are making our claims through the Supreme Court’, he explains. Meanwhile government agencies do deal with the Shishalh as rightsholders. Recently BC Tel had to get permission to enter.

Archaeologists, we are told on the web, estimate the original population of the Shishalh to have been about 23,000 but owing to a series of epidemics of introduced diseases in the 19th century, their numbers have been reduced to some 1,200 today. Of these only about 700 still live in the area, says Chief Calvin. ‘Our people suffered a lot’, he goes on, ‘we were forced off our original areas and settled here. They said they were going to ‘beat the savage out of us’ and they gave us a new religion’. By separating the people into separate bands, the government got control of the people and one result is that the land claims process imposes separations between the different Coastal Salish groups. There are now cases in the Supreme Court between the different ‘Bands’, which Chief Calvin thinks would be better resolved by customary law. ‘Really, we were all one people’, says Chief Calvin, ‘but now we are separated into 31 different Reserves’. 

His father was Hereditary Chief of the Shishalh but when they created the Band Council, the government stripped him of his authority and told the Band they should elect their own leader. The Shishalh got round this by only putting his father up as a candidate and then electing him repeatedly to be head of the Band Council. Not all First Nations have been able to do this thereby creating divisions between traditional leaders and elected Band Councils. After his father died when only 53 years old, Chief Calvin was asked to stand and he served repeated 2-year terms for 16 years and came back to do another 3-year term from 2013. Chief Calvin says that the new system makes the leaders act more like the Board of Directors of a corporation than was the custom. ‘’Chief’ is an imposed word’, he explains, ‘traditionally each house had its own ‘house-speaker’, and they would confer with the spokesman for each family and when the houses got together’. A house-speaker would open with the statement ‘I have words to share’. He could have up to three wives.

It would be better, says Chief Calvin, if the old system of leadership was restored but we would still need to have our corporations. Today the Band has corporations for fisheries, forestry, resource management, marketing and housing and they have just renewed a 50 year deal with Lehigh Cement Corporation for gravel extraction and road building. ‘We have a vision that we are going to take back jurisdiction over everything’ says Chief Calvin, but he admits they will have to allow the local government to continue to administer the non-indigenous residents who now number some 30,000 people and they have yet to figure out in detail how they will address all the overlapping rights. From the Shishalh perspective ‘all land here is held in common’, says Chief Calvin, but Band members can get ‘certificates of possession’ which can be used to get collateral from banks. These properties can be bought and sold but only among Band members. Meanwhile the affairs of the Band are still meant to be overseen by the Department for Indian Affairs, based in Ottawa, which does provide the Band with a substantial budget contribution. Since 1986, each Band is self-governing and here in Shishalh they are promoting Shishalh language in schools. This started after the Residential schools were closed in the 1970s. The new school curricula also include instruction in other elements of Shishalh culture ‘to help people find their path’.

Chief Calvin’s mouth compresses when he remembers life in the Residential School. He was interned in the school in Seshelt but was also sent away to Mission City for two years while others were sent away to Kamloops. He recalls some pupils from the islands who drowned while trying to escape back to their home villages. It is not a happy memory.

Reclaiming rights 

Traditionally, the Shishalh also made use of the ocean, for collecting abalone, clam and other shellfish and to hunt whales, which would be harpooned from the shore when gray whales chased schools of herrings through the rocky narrows. The Shishalh are also reclaiming rights over the coastal resources as part of their territorial claim. They have tried to manage these resources by appointing their own marine guardians but without official backing they can do little to challenge sports fishermen who have permits from the Government. ‘We need to shut down some areas to allow the fisheries to regenerate’ explains Chief Calvin. ‘We have known since the 1960s that it would take a very long time to recover our control of things. Since then we have come a long way. It is very gratifying to see the changes we have achieved and to see the grandchildren thriving. Had I given up, things would be vastly different. I would say that in the next twenty years we will be back in full control of our lands and resources.’

Chief Calvin notes that they have had some tough negotiations, for example with a corporation that had contaminated lands which was obliged to pay for the clean up. They now have a Restoration Justice Committee to address these kinds of challenges. One of the most challenging will be to work out how to deal fairly with the non-indigenous residents who have acquired properties and now live in the area. They are looking to recover these lands gradually but accept they may have to buy these lands back. They will also need to negotiate with the Parks authorities to regain control of protected areas. These challenges are not unique to the Shishalh and they have close ties to the Assembly of First Nations and the Union of British Columbia Chiefs, which gives them strength in numbers and experiences to share in their dealing with the provincial authorities. What is unmistakable to us as we come to the end of our discussion is that the Shishalh have already taken back control of their future. It may not be an easy road ahead but the colonial era is definitely coming to an end.      

As we rise to take our leave, we look out of the wide windows to the west. The ocean is grey now and choppy with the wind. A low ceiling of skudding clouds is moving towards and over us bringing in grey sweeps of rain. The big drops thud on the glass of the panes and stream down the windows, and through them you can see, between the overhanging pines, the steep, glistening road down to the sea. Three totem poles stand tall along the shore, sentinels to a deeper age and guardians, perhaps, of an uncertain future. Their heads rise above the grey timbered cabins and bungalows that line the street. But beyond, sticking out from the shore, an ugly array of conveyor belts and gantries funnel gravel into huge waiting barges as big as small ships.

‘That’s all that’s left’ says Chief Calvin. ‘They took out all the other wealth, all the timber and now that’s what there is’.